PLAN OF THE WORK. Xlll 



be often used with equal, if not greater, advan- 

 tage. The French in these cases gallicize the 

 Greek ; but this, except in chemistry and a few 

 other instances, appears to me in such bad taste, 

 that I hope never to see the practice followed in 

 England. " Whenever a Frenchman," says a 

 shrewd writer, " can get hold of a rag of Greek, 

 he instantly defiles it."* I have therefore ad- 

 mitted few, if any, terms not of English origin in 

 the text, and have consigned the Latin and Greek 

 terms to the notes. 



The serious obstruction to knowledge caused by 

 the rage for multiplying newly invented words is 

 strikingly exemplified in the fact, that, of the "fifty- 

 two pieces composing the thorax," (corselet,) "Mr. 

 Kirby does not describe much more than twenty, 

 and yet uses about forty different words for them 

 in his nomenclature. "f These are the very words 

 of Mr. MacLeay, the author's most particular 

 friend. Now, with a book having forty newly coined 

 words for twenty things, how, I may justly ask, is 

 it possible that a student can make progress in 

 a science which has enough of difficulty arising 

 from the minuteness of the objects, without thus 

 taxing invention to increase them ? " The doubts 

 and difficulties/' says Audouin, " which are ex- 

 perienced at every step, in trying to comprehend 

 what pieces Mr. Kirby wishes to describe, suffici- 



* Two Hundred and Nine Days, by T. J. Hogg, Esq. i. 226. 

 t Zoological Journal, v. 177 



